


Songs on the Radio

by lifeofafandomatic



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-06
Updated: 2016-01-06
Packaged: 2018-05-12 05:13:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5653651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lifeofafandomatic/pseuds/lifeofafandomatic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Emma’s stuck at a stoplight, and Neal pulls up next to her jamming out to the radio. She starts switching through the stations trying to figure out what song he’s singing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Songs on the Radio

**Author's Note:**

> This is a super quick piece because I saw the prompt and could not resist promoting some of my favourite artists! This is an AU, so you don’t have to have watched OUAT to understand it. Kudos if you can identify all the songs Emma hears on the various stations, because the only lyric from a chorus is in the song Neal listens to. For my fellow Oncers, double kudos if you can see a theme in all the lyrics I chose… ;)

Red lights. Why did it always have to be red lights. 

Emma slammed the breaks and glared impatiently at the light. Come  _ on _ , she had places to go, people to see! To make it worse, this was the intersection where the light literally took three minutes to change. Three minutes isn’t an awful lot until you’re supposed to be somewhere in ten minutes and it’ll take 30 to get there on a good day.

She heard the voice before she saw the person. A man around her age, if not older, pulled up beside her, singing along to a song she couldn’t identify. “ _ I say I want to settle down / Build your hopes up like a tower / I'm giving you the run around / I'm just a lost boy / Not ready to be found _ .” Whatever it was, it was a hell of a good song. 

A voice cut through the song, but the man in the next car continued singing. “Let me tell you something about the artist,” a female voice said. So, he was listening to the radio. Emma reached for the dial and went through the stations. The news, something about economics, a language-learning course…. Finally, Emma found a few stations playing music, but none of them matched the tune coming out of the man‘s mouth. 

_ “I’m taking off in a blur / With diamonds in my grave….” _

_ “My eyes are damp from the words you left, / Ringing in my head, when you broke my chest…” _

_ “Pastor, preacher / I wanna say I’m sorry….” _

_ “So what are you waiting for / Cause someone could love you more / I'm just lost boy, lost boy….” _

There! That was the song! Emma was so focused on finding it that she hadn’t realised the light had just turned green. The man in the car beside her sped off, and she heard the radio DJ’s voice say, “That was  _ LOST BOY _ by Troye Sivan, off his new album  _ Blue Neighbourhood _ , out now.”

Whoever that man was, he had a good taste in music. She stepped on the gas and drove off to her appointment, music filling her ears. 

**Author's Note:**

> In case you were wondering, here are the songs I included in this fic in the order they appear (and, for any Oncers out there, some explanations):
> 
> \- LOST BOY by Troye Sivan – other than the fact that Neal was, quite literally, a Lost Boy, I feel like both he and Emma are lost souls, having faced so much rejection in their pasts.   
> \- Live Fast, Die Young by Jake Wesley Rogers – when Neal and Emma first meet, they lead a life of crime. This song reflects that life of having to always be on the run.   
> \- Youth by Daughter – Neal left Emma, plain and simple. Obviously we’ve seen how hurt she was by it, and this song illustrates her anger over all the broken promises he made the night she was arrested.   
> \- The Unknown by Imagine Dragons – this song is, to me, about trying to fix the past. When Neal sees Emma again, he wants to mend their relationship and ask for her forgiveness. 
> 
> This was shorter than my usual fics, but I hope you liked it all the same!


End file.
